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The Middle East in Upheaval: Interpreting and Predicting
Five tyrants overturned and two states destroyed; that’s the results of upheavals in the Middle East since 2011. In a tour d’horizon, I offer background to these developments, analyze their significance, and make predictions. In brief: Iranian centrifuges whir, ISIS astonishes even as the Islamist surge falls into disarray, anarchy advances, Kurdistan emerges, Turkey goes rogue, Egypt teeters, America recedes, and Israel stands out ever-more as a “villa in the jungle.”
Israel's Paradox: Flourishing But Imperiled
Israel is a success story with few parallels, turning a barren land into a military, scientific, and cultural powerhouse. Yet its many achievements notwithstanding, the country lives under a unique barrage of threats. Daniel Pipes reconciles and explains this paradox, ending with a policy recommendation for the U.S. government.
Does a “War on Terror” Still Exist?
Does a “war on terror” still exist post-Osama bin Laden? Daniel Pipes answers this question and explains that it is properly understood as a war on radical Islam, not terrorism. Radical Islam is the great ideological challenge of our time, akin to fascism and communism in their day. The West must defeat this movement and help Muslims replace it with a moderate form of Islam.
Islam vs Islamism
What is the enemy, the ancient religion of Islam or the modern political movement known as Islamism? In this speech, Pipes explains and argues that radical Islam is the problem and moderate Islam is the solution.
Europe or Eurabia: Islam and the Continent’s Future
Europe stands at an unprecedented crossroads: Will the continent retain its historic civilization or become predominantly Muslim? Will Europeans quietly accept Islamic law or resist this process? Here, Pipes analyzes the main prospects and concludes that the question remains yet open, with the next 10-20 years likely to prove decisive.
Lawful Islamism: A Greater Threat than Terrorism
Putting on the mantle of a strategist for radical Islam, Pipes argues that “soft jihad” or “creeping Shari‘a” has greater chances of success than criminality and violence. It can best attain the goal of imposing the Shari‘a (Islamic law) by focusing efforts on working legitimately within the system as opposed to engaging in violence. That includes: influencing the political, legal, journalistic, academic arenas, engaging in da`wa (conversion) efforts, and (in Western countries) urging laxer immigration procedures.
Provocations
A series of conversation starters: Iraq & Afghanistan show few and diminishing traces of the vast U.S. effort in those countries. The Arab-Israeli conflict will end only when one side gives up. Turkey is heading to be the most dangerous Muslim country and Iran the most friendly one. Islamism is fracturing before our eyes.
Daniel Pipes is President of the Middle East Forum. His bi-weekly column appears regularly in The Washington Times and in newspapers around the globe, including the Israel Hayom (Israel), La Razón (Spain), Liberal (Italy), National Post (Canada), and The Australian. His special interests include the role of Islam in public life, Turkey, Syria, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and U.S. foreign policy.
His website, DanielPipes.org, offers an archive of his work and an opportunity to sign up to receive e-mails of his current writings. With 75 million page visits, it is of the Internet's most accessed sources of specialized information on the Middle East and Muslim history. He tweets at @DanielPipes.
CBS News Sunday Morning says Daniel Pipes was "years ahead of the curve in identifying the threat of radical Islam." "Unnoticed by most Westerners," he wrote, for example, in 1995, "war has been unilaterally declared on Europe and the United States." The Boston Globe states that "If Pipes's admonitions had been heeded, there might never have been a 9/11." The Wall Street Journal calls Mr. Pipes "an authoritative commentator on the Middle East" and The Washington Post deems him both "a prominent conservative intellectual" and "perhaps the most prominent U.S. scholar on radical Islam." The Huffington Post recognizes him as "a renowned scholar on matters of extremist Islam."
He received his A.B. (1971) and Ph.D. (1978) from Harvard University, both in history, and spent six years studying abroad, including three years in Egypt. Mr. Pipes speaks French, and reads Arabic and German. He has taught at Harvard, Pepperdine, the U.S. Naval War College, and the University of Chicago. He has been affiliated with Princeton and Stanford universities. He served in various capacities in the U.S. government, including two presidentially-appointed positions, vice chairman of the Fulbright Board of Foreign Scholarships and board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace. He was director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, 1986-93.
Mr. Pipes discusses current issues on television on such U.S. programs as ABC World News Tonight, Crossfire, Good Morning America, Nightline, PBS NewsHour, and The Today Show. He has appeared on leading television networks around the globe, including the BBC and Al-Jazeera, and has lectured in 25 countries. He has publicly debated leading figures, including Noam Chomsky and Ken Livingstone.
More than 100 newspapers have carried his articles, including Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. Mr. Pipes has published in such magazines as The Atlantic, Commentary, Foreign Affairs, Harper's Magazine, National Review, New Republic, Newsweek, TIME, and The Weekly Standard.
Mr. Pipes has written sixteen books: Four deal with Islam: Face à l'islam radical (co-authored with Guy Millière, French: David Reinharc, 2012), The Rushdie Affair (Birch Lane, 1990), In the Path of God (Basic Books, 1983), and Slave Soldiers and Islam (Yale University Press, 1981). Three books concern Syria: Syria Beyond the Peace Process (Washington Institute, 1996), Damascus Courts the West (Washington Institute, 1991), and Greater Syria (Oxford University Press, 1990). Two deal with other Middle Eastern topics: The Hidden Hand (St. Martin's, 1996) analyzes conspiracy theories among Arabs and Iranians. An Arabist's Guide to Colloquial Egyptian (Foreign Service Institute, 1983) systematizes the grammar of Arabic as spoken in Egypt.
Conspiracy (Free Press 1997) establishes the importance of conspiracy theories in modern Europe and America. Six volumes contain some of his best essays: Nothing Abides (Transaction, 2015), Löwengrube (German: Critic, 2012), L'islam radical à la conquête du monde (French: Cheminements, 2008), Miniatures (Transaction, 2003), Militant Islam Reaches America (WW Norton, 2002), and The Long Shadow (Transaction, 1989).
In addition, Mr. Pipes has edited two collections of essays by multiple authors: Sandstorm (UPA, 1993) and Friendly Tyrants (St. Martin's, 1991). He has published 1,100 articles, 1,300 weblog entries, and 700 book reviews. There are 11,000 translations of his writings into 37 languages, appearing in such publications as ABC (Spain), Corriere della Sera, Le Figaro, and Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
Mr. Pipes has edited two journals, Orbis (1986-90) and Middle East Quarterly (1994-2001). He sits on several editorial boards, has testified before several congressional committees, and worked on five presidential campaigns. Universities in the United States and Switzerland have conferred honorary degrees on him.
Mr. Pipes takes pride in having been orked by Edward Kennedy, called an "orientalist" by Edward Said, deemed the neo-conservative movement's "leading thinker" by Egypt's Al-Ahram newspaper, and publicly invited to convert by a top Al-Qaeda figure. He has also been recognized as one of Harvard University's 100 most influential living graduates and is listed in Marquis Who's Who in the World.
Mr. Pipes founded the Middle East Forum (MEForum.org), an independent 501(c)3 organization, in 1994. The Forum has a US$4 million annual budget. Its mission is "promoting American interests" through publications, research, media outreach, and public education. It publishes the Middle East Quarterly and sponsors Campus Watch, Islamist Watch, the Legal Project, and the Washington Project.
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